Rant and Rave

The Penal Principleby Doctor Thomas L. Magliozzi (Ph.D. in Penology)

There I was. Just musing, as I am wont to do. And I mused this:

The way that we "punish" criminals has never made any sense to me. We build
expensive
facilities in which to incarcerate them. Various sources estimate that a
prisoner costs us
$30,000 to $50,000 a year. (Yes, it costs US. You and me.)

Now let me get this straight. These criminals are people who have said, "I
don't want to
subscribe to the rules that this society has set up. I want to operate by my
own rules. I
don't like your rules. I happen to think it's OK for me to rob, plunder, rape,
murder and
whatever else. Catch me if you can." So, we catch them. Then what? Then
we pay $30k
to $50 K to put them away for a short time in the hope that they'll be
dissuaded from
doing this again. They aren't dissuaded. They already told us that they
don't like our
rules, and locking them up for 5, 10 or 50 years doesn't make them like the
rules any
better. Recidivism rates are very high.

And we pay several times. The $50,000 it takes to keep them away from
society for a
year is just the beginning. The fact that they've done whatever they've done
has lots of
other costs. Insurance for one. All of us pay for insurance to help defray
the cost of
crime when it strikes us. And not just our own insurance. Every product or
service we
spend money for has in it an additional cost because of the insurance that
the provider had
to buy. And money doesn't go just to the insurance companies. All those
plain clothes
people skulking around K Mart have to get paid. So you buy a pair of shorts
and you paid
some percentage for the "crime tax"--insurance, guards, shoplifting losses
etc. Then they
get caught and they want us to pay again? Why should we pay anything? Just
what are
we paying for anyway? A year or two (or 20?) of freedom from that particular
criminal?
When there are so many to take his place that we don't even know he's gone?

Here's my idea. Since these sociopaths have come right out and stated that
they don't like
the society that the rest of us have devised (and there ARE more of us than
there are of
them--at least, so far), why do we allow them to live in it? Why not give
them their own
society to live in. They deserve each other, don't they. Some would say that
the prisons
are that society. But WE build the prisons for them. WE run them. WE
supply the food,
the TV's the weight room, the heat and light and laundry. Why us? Why are
WE obliged
to care for criminals? "Society" has basically said "Here are the rules that
we all agree to
follow if we're going to live together." The criminals say, "We don't like
the rules." Isn't
the obvious response, "Fine. Go somewhere else, and make your own society."

Now I'm not saying that prison is a day at the beach, but it's surely way too
good. Why
not this:

Why not choose an impenetrable location. One that can be easily guarded.
Preferably one
that has NO amenities. A jungle, perhaps. The rationale is simple. If you
don't want to
live here, live there. But there's no food! No TV! No nuthin'! I can't
even get in touch
with the ACLU!

Well isn't THAT just too bad. You did say you didn't want to live here,
didn't you?

This has all the attributes of a great idea:

It solves the problem.

It's simple.

It's much less expensive than the current solution

And it's not new.

You've probably already recognized this idea. It's Devil's Island. It was
the idea behind
Australia--but Australia was far too good a place to "give away" to the scum
of the earth.
So was Devil's Island, for that matter. I personally like Siberia. Or
Montana. Someplace
that nobody wants. We give it to them and they fend for themselves.

Think about the advantages.

1. All the criminals of the world will be together. If they figure out how
to eat, they eat.
If they decide to steal from someone else, great. If they decide to kill
someone to take his
food, excellent. What could be better.

2. The only costs are those of transporting the prisoners to the "island"
and protecting
against escape. And it's so simple to guard. We ring the island with
battleships. There is
no contact with "the inhabitants" and so no way for unscrupulous guards to
make deals,
sell dope or to get hurt, for that matter. Anything in the water surrounding
the island gets
blown to bits. Period. Is it harsh? Didn't THEY tell US that they didn't
agree with our
rules? And weren't we nice enough to provide them with a venue for making
their own?

3. Think of the social experiment. (Also not new; The Admirable Crichton,
Lord of the
Flies, Gilligan's Island!). This'll keep the sociologists busy for
centuries. (Of course, if
they go there to write a Ph.D. Thesis, they can never leave. Nobody leaves!)

4. The ACLU will be busy for centuries, too. Our answer to them will
always be the
same; "Rave on!."

The tree huggers of the world will, of course, think of a "compromise." For
example, this
may be OK for hardened criminals, but shoplifting? Come on. How about a
less harsh
arrangement for minor crimes. Sure. I'll go for that. But, all second
offenders go to "the
island." [Actually, "the rock" has a really nice ring to it, no?]

The reason that prisons aren't a deterrent is that they're too easy. Crime
is destroying the
country, if not the world. Surely, it does not take a rocket scientist to
realize this? In a
few years, there could be NO crime.

Think about that. No crime. You could walk down any street any time of
day or night.
You could leave your doors unlocked. You could pick up hitchhikers again.
Your kids
could walk to the corner store without getting caught in a crossfire. Smith
and Wesson
would be out of business.

Then we'd have the time to work on the real problems of the world; hunger,
disease and
devising a plan to get rid of the jerks in Hollywood who make Rambo movies.